


Mirror

by Dmnq8



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-25
Updated: 2009-10-25
Packaged: 2017-11-08 03:57:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/438886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dmnq8/pseuds/Dmnq8
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Naruto meets someone who reflects all the worst aspects of his existence, yet somehow brings out the best in him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Naruto hated his life. He would never admit that, not even to himself, but he did. He wasn't even aware that he hated it. He just knew he felt like he was in a constant fight with everyone around him and the misery was an ever-present pain inside him.

Right now he was at the training grounds with his team. He watched as Kakashi-sensei flipped his book closed and addressed them.

"Yosh!" the Jounin said. "Training's done for today. Report back here bright and early tomorrow morning to begin the new mission."

This wasn't even worth getting excited about. The mission was likely to be another boring D-rank that he screwed up on. "Neh, Kakashi-sensei," Naruto grouched. "Why can't we get a cool A-rank mission?"

"What would you do on an A-rank," Sasuke drawled. He didn't give Naruto the courtesy of looking at him as he spoke. "All you do is mess up on the D-ranks we get. I'm constantly saving your stupid ass. You're the reason this team sucks. You're dragging us down."

"Teme!" Naruto raised his fist. "I am not the reason this team is weak, you are!"

"Sasuke-kun is right," Sakura sang. "You are weak."

Naruto glared at her. He wished desperately that his crush saw him in a different light. Before he could say anything else Kakashi-sensei intervened.

"Once your teamwork improves you will be given better missions. If you want an A-rank, Naruto, work hard and become stronger. Ja ne." The Jounin disappeared with a poof.

Naruto sullenly watched Sakura try to encourage Sasuke to go on a date with her as the two walked off the training grounds. The last thing he heard before they disappeared was Sasuke telling Sakura to get lost. That gave the dejected blond a tiny bit of happiness.

-oOo-

He walked aimlessly through the village for a few hours, killing time as evening fell. He didn't like going home to his empty apartment. In the end, Naruto landed on the Hokage monument and sat atop the Fourth's shaggy head. He gazed out over the twinkling lights of the village, leaning on one huge spike of hair. He sighed.

On a rooftop not far away a pair of dark-ringed eyes regarded him speculatively. That figure also watched life in the village, apart from the activities.  
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The next day, after the mission, Kakashi-sensei announced that the Chuunin exam would be taking place soon. Team 7 had been submitted, he told them. It was up to them if they actually went through with it or not.

A lot of bickering and arguing later, Naruto and his team did decide to join. They made it through the written portion of the exam by the skin of their teeth and the Forest of Death portion with a bit more skill. Some snakey asshole attacked Sasuke but Naruto came to the teme's rescue. They fought the bastard off, though it cost them both.

It was at the matches after the five days in the forest that Naruto saw him for the first time. That weird kid with the gourd. He had to have been standing there on the railed walkway across the room the entire time, but Naruto didn't notice him until he went up against Bushy Brows. Something about the kid resonated with Naruto. Like, literally struck a chord that hummed throughout Naruto's being. Naruto couldn't take his eyes off the match, watching the kid's every move. They'd said the kid's name was Gaara.

He was utterly ruthless against Bushy Brows. Lee fought with dignity, honor, pride. Gaara fought to kill, plain and simple. Naruto wondered where someone so young got the thirst to kill so meaninglessly. Had Gai-sensei not stopped the fight, Lee would have been dead. As it was, he was in critical condition.

Gaara. Just who was he exactly?

-oOo-

The matches were over. The Third announced that they'd have a month to train before the final exam. Kakashi informed Naruto that he was to go train with some closet pervert while he, Kakashi, went to train the perfect and ever enviable Sasuke. Joy.

Naruto wasn't exactly surprised. Sure, he'd hoped to get some cool new move out of his sensei, but Naruto rarely ever got what he wanted. Tragic though everyone liked to think Sasuke's life was, it was him who had everything Naruto ever wanted in life. He had the girls, the acknowledgment, the skills, the looks. God, he _hated_ Sasuke!

Ebisu-sensei wasn't easy to ditch, but Naruto had years of practice. Weird, when you thought about it; Naruto was desperate for any attention, even negative attention, so why did he have so much experience evading people? All right, he got into trouble a lot…okay, more than a lot, he was constantly in trouble…but he was unnaturally good at disappearing. Maybe the fact that most people ignored him helped. It could be said that Ebisu didn't try as hard as he might have to chase him.

-oOo-

Naruto ended up at the section of the village where all the guests for the Chuunin exam were being housed. He walked through the narrow alleys between motels until he saw a man standing on a third-floor balcony of one particular building. The man had one half of his face veiled. Naruto paused as the realization that he'd been unconsciously seeking this Gaara person out hit him. _Well, I'm here now_ , the blond shrugged. _No use going back_. He walked into the motel.

It was cool and dim inside. A few couches that had seen better days sat around the slightly shabby reception area. An ancient fan turned lazily with a muted droning sound. The receptionist gave him a frown and a sniff when he asked what room the Sand Genins were in. "What, I don't have a right to breathe your precious air?" Naruto asked indignantly. He was ignored. Typical. Naruto made his way up the stairway to her left and searched the third floor himself.

What was he doing? Why did he want to meet this person? Dude was hella strong, Naruto had seen that. Still, curiosity had him by the throat by now and Naruto was powerless to stop himself when he found what he thought was the right door. A drop of sweat wended its sluggish way down one temple as his heart sped up a few beats. He raised his grubby fist and knocked.

A girl answered. She looked to be permanently displeased about something, most especially the sight of Naruto standing there asking if Gaara was around.

"What do you want to see him for?"

Naruto hadn't thought of that. His brain didn't do well under pressure or when pretty girls were staring daggers at him. "I…uh…saw him at the matches and wanted to say hello?"

The girl sneered. "Wait here." She closed the door firmly in his face.

Naruto waited in the stifling hallway as he heard raised voices behind the door. He saw a mouse scurry along the base of the wall opposite him. When the door reopened it was the veiled man standing there. He regarded Naruto with one angry eye.

"Gaara is not allowed visitors," the man said stonily. "You may leave."

The door shut with a deal more finality this time. The brief wind it made fanned Naruto's burning cheeks. He considered storming the place, but thought better of it. That girl had fought well at the matches and if that man was their teacher he had to be very strong; not one of the Sand trio had lost a match. It galled him to back down, but Naruto displayed a rare bit of wisdom and left the motel quietly.  
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The blond happened to have a few ryou burning a hole in his pocket. He treated himself to ramen at his favorite spot before heading reluctantly home. He was lost in thought as he trudged up the stairs, pushed his key in his door and entered his small living space. Even if he had been alert, though, he probably wouldn't have noticed the presence standing in his living room until it was too late. As it was, Naruto stared dumbly at his visitor.

Gaara stood impassively, arms folded, stance at ease. He stared at Naruto as the blond slowly closed the door behind him. A hot breeze drew Naruto's glance toward his open window. That answered the question of how the kid had gotten into his apartment, at least. He walked forward a few steps and stared right back at Gaara, feeling his body buzz in recognition of some nameless power the guy had.

Naruto let his gaze take in the black attire, the calm yet forceful look on Gaara's face. Those eyes zeroed in on Naruto's blue ones and held them. When Gaara spoke it startled Naruto badly.

"I heard you were looking for me. What do you want?" the redhead said. His voice was deep and pleasant on the ears. At least, Naruto found the voice pleasant. It wasn't until later that he would think the voice was pleasant because it didn't belittle him with its tone or sound annoyed or angry with him.

Naruto could have lied, but the situation was too surreal for his brain to produce one that would sound convincing. There, in the moonlit confines of his messy apartment, Naruto told the simple truth. "I don't know. I just…felt like knowing you."

"I could kill you…would you still want to know me then?"

Naruto did not respond.

Gaara continued to stare at this strange kid, unable to comprehend someone _wanting_ to know him. He'd seen his execrable fighting style, heard how the kid seemed never to shut up. Yet he'd also seen him sit for hours watching a village that he didn't seem to be a part of. Even when Naruto (Gaara knew his name; the kid had shouted it often enough during the matches) was screaming at his team mates Gaara sensed that a part of the blond was silent and watchful, waiting for censure or condemnation. Gaara could relate. He could relate very well.

In fact, they both related so well, were both so used to being ignored and scorned that their mutual interest in each other, evident by the prolonged stare, was quickly becoming unbearable. Even so, they were helpless to look away. Gaara took in the baggy orange pants, the matching orange jacket that was currently tied by the sleeves around Naruto's waist and the sweaty black t-shirt. The silence as blue stared into sea-green became insufferable and Naruto ducked his head in self-defense. The eye contact was broken and Gaara felt he could take a breath at last. They each shifted their shoulders, trying to dispel the unfamiliar feeling of kinship that had been creeping up on them.

It was Gaara who spoke again, making Naruto raise his head. "You fight horribly. Who is your teacher?"

Naruto squawked in indignation. "I'm awesome! How dare you say that? What do you know?"

Gaara didn't even blink. "Do you always get defensive when people state the truth? You suck. Who's responsible for your training?"

Naruto felt nearly apoplectic with rage. This bastard didn't even know him! "Kakashi-sensei," he muttered. "But he's not training me right now. He's off training Sasuke." Naruto turned from Gaara and flopped on his bed moodily. Meeting Gaara was turning out to be a big disappointment.

An expression animated Gaara's glabrous face at last; his eyes widened as he took a few slow steps nearer the bed. He peered down at Naruto's grumpy face. The mention of Sasuke receiving something Naruto wanted had sounded as if it were a common occurrence. Naruto's voice had held dull resignation. Gaara would kill his sensei Baki if the man refused him training. What kind of teacher did Naruto have? And why did the boy accept refusal so easily? "Kakashi the Copy Ninja?"

"That's him."

Gaara was surprised enough to sit on the edge of Naruto's bed. "He's a superb ninja. Why isn't he teaching you better?"

"Always has his nose in those stupid books, I guess." Naruto rolled to an elbow, studying Gaara. "How'd you get away from your sensei?"

"Quite easily. He left my brother and sister to watch me. What did you mean by wanting to know me?"

Naruto had been enjoying the ease with which the conversation was flowing. Now he shrugged one shoulder, uncomfortable again. Gaara looked at the blond in silence a moment then turned his eyes toward the messy room. The night he'd watched Naruto sitting on the Hokage monument suddenly came to him in a different light, coupled with the fact that Naruto obviously lived alone.

"Where is your family?" Gaara asked.

"I don't have one. You're lucky to have a brother and sister and a father."

Gaara turned so that he was sitting cross-legged on the lumpy mattress. The conversation was intimate and strained at the same time. The combination left him fascinated, quite apart from the fact that it was unheard of for him to be having a conversation with anyone at all. "Lucky? They all hate me and I hate them."

Naruto gasped, completely scandalized. He sat up. If there was one thing he wished for more than acknowledgement from the villagers it was a family. To hear that someone had a family and hated them…"That's awful. I would do anything to have a family. Families don't hate each other," Naruto said in reverent tones. "They love and protect each other."

Gaara's voice held little inflection when he said, "My father tried to have me assassinated for six years. My uncle died trying to kill me. My mother died giving birth to me with a curse on her lips. No one loves me. I love myself."

Naruto was at a loss for words. His fundamentally good nature could not fathom a father wanting to kill his son. It just did not compute for him. He opened and closed his mouth soundlessly as he stared at Gaara's blank face. He managed a whispered word. "Why?"

Now it was Gaara's turn to shrug. He was actually talking to someone; he didn't want to risk Naruto looking at him the same way everyone else did by telling him the truth.

Naruto accepted the shrug. He didn't want to push Gaara away by pressing for obviously sensitive information.

The conversation fizzled after that. They spent a few more minutes staring at each other in silence until Gaara eventually slid off the bed. Naruto followed him to the window where the redhead crouched briefly on the sill. He looked back at the blond.

Something could have been said, a request to meet again, an apology for any insult given…but somehow their brief, strange words had bonded them sufficiently so that they were beyond the necessity for verbal communication. Gaara's glance conveyed the request just as Naruto's offered the apology. Then Gaara was gone with a swirl of sand.

Naruto stood looking out his window as he pondered this first encounter long into the night.


	2. Chapter 2

"You are a _weapon_! You are not some kid who can run off to meet other _idiots_! You are crucial to the invasion of Konoha and you are to _obey me in all things_!" Baki screamed himself hoarse at a stoic Gaara for most of the night when the redhead deigned to walk back into the motel. There was more. Baki continued the rest in a slightly softer yet by no means kinder tone. "You know how you get when you lose control. The full moon is nearly upon us. I don't want to have to clean up any of your 'messes', Gaara. Keep yourself here, away from people before you hurt someone."

Baki gave Gaara a look tinged with fear and mild revulsion. Gaara had never seen his teacher look at him any other way. He cut his pale eyes toward where his brother and sister where standing and caught the same look. The only person who'd looked at him differently had been Yashamaru…but that had been a lie.

Gaara could end them all where they stood. He liked killing. It was the only thing that afforded him any pleasure, the only thing that made his unbearable life a bit more bearable.

Well, that had been the case until a few hours ago.

Naruto. Uzumaki Naruto. He didn't look at Gaara with anything but open interest. _He also doesn't know the truth about me_. Gaara concluded that it was the thought of Naruto that prevented him from killing Baki outright. He was preoccupied with thoughts of the blond boy. He hugged the memory of his meeting with him close as his teacher reamed him.

Baki locked Gaara in his room and remained outside the door himself. Gaara wasn't worried. He intended to see Naruto again and nothing was going to stop him.  
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

For Naruto, the day started with him waking up from a nightmare and just kept getting worse from there.

Actually it wasn't so much a nightmare as it was the knowledge that he was supposed to be fighting Neji in a month. The realization hit him like a thunderclap in his sleep and Naruto was catapulted from slumber with all the force of an avalanche. He sat there on his bed, his breathing all ragged and his heart pounding. _I don't have a chance against him_ , Naruto thought. _I need help_.

He'd gotten out of bed to pad barefoot to the kitchen and see what could be found in the way of breakfast. The answer was a bunch of scurrying roaches and not much else. He made a half-hearted attempt to clean his filthy kitchen then decided to just screw it. He'd eat later.

-oOo-

He located Ebisu-sensei running drills with his young team. The bespectacled Jounin eyed Naruto neutrally as the blonde bowed deeply.

"I'm sorry for running away from you yesterday, senpai. Please forgive me and accept me as your student." Naruto kept his head bowed.

It gave Ebisu a certain amount of pleasure to have the Kyuubi vessel begging him. His anus tightened with the sensation of power denying the young boy gave him. He did it casually, letting the little monster know he didn't have a chance in hell of convincing Ebisu to change his mind.

Naruto straightened and gazed at Ebisu's thin face. A wayward ray of sunlight slanted across the thin visage in such a way that one eye was illuminated behind the dark lenses. Naruto could see the hatred clearly. He swallowed, turned and walked away with as much dignity as he could manage.

-oOo-

He wandered, walking the village streets and thinking. Okay. Who could help him? Kakashi was off with Supreme Buttface. Ebisu was a lost cause. Every other Jounin was off training his or her students. Naruto truly regretted running away from the closet pervert yesterday. He was seldom handed opportunities and here he'd gone and shat all over one. Dammit!

The sun was blazing, the day tortuously hot. Naruto found himself by a small waterfall that emptied into a stream. He sat on the narrow bank and absently skipped rocks as he considered his options.

_I have a match against one of the strongest-no, scratch that. Against THE strongest Genin in Konoha in exactly a month. I have no sensei and looks like no one's going to teach me. Sasuke and Gaara are right. I am weak and I do suck. I'm not forfeiting that match, so what to do?"_

Seemed he'd have to train himself. He thought of asking Iruka-sensei to help him. The idea was tempting. If only Iruka-sensei himself wasn't so weak!

The sad truth was that Naruto didn't even know where to begin. How does one train themselves? Naruto figured that if it were possible, he wouldn't be a Genin. He needed a teacher, didn't have one and that was that. A sudden urge to lay his head in someone's lap and cry at the unfairness of life descended on him.

Then he clenched his jaw and forced himself to get over it. Life sucked, big deal. He had a match to train for.  
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Gaara sat listening to the faint snores of his siblings and sensei in the other room of the motel. When dawn arrived he performed Shunshin and disappeared in a blast of sand.

Walking around Konoha was markedly better than walking around Suna, Gaara found. Here, no one knew who he was. There were no cold looks of hate and disgust. A few people even threw a smile his way on occasion. He arrived at Naruto's building in time to see the blonde leaving. He followed him.

He witnessed the scene with the Jounin who wore sunglasses with a frown. Gaara knew who Naruto was paired against for the final matches. The Hyuuga was a strong fighter, Naruto would need all the help he could get. It tightened Gaara's stomach in an odd way to see the earnest boy turned down so rudely. Why was he treated like that?

-oOo-

Gaara observed Naruto's clumsy attempts at self-training from the cover of some bushes for more than an hour. He finally stepped forward from sheer horror that someone so inept was to face Hyuuga Neji. Naruto watched Gaara approach from where he'd collapsed in a sweaty heap, breathing heavily as he blinked perspiration out of his eyes.

To Naruto, Gaara seemed to shimmer in the waves of heat baking up from the ground. He squinted for a second; he'd completely forgotten about yesterday's encounter, his mind abuzz with the fact that he had only a short time before Neji creamed him. He remembered quick enough once he saw the kid. "What are you doing here?" Naruto asked.

Gaara replied with the truth. "You're the only person I've ever felt really comfortable around."

Ignorant of social graces as Naruto was, he thought this a particularly profound statement for someone to be making to a kid they'd met only the day before. Gaara further floored him by saying, "And it looks like you don't have any friends either."

Naruto got up cautiously, not quite believing his ears. "And…what. You want to be my friend?"

Gaara blinked expressionlessly as he turned this new thought over in his mind. The very alien-ness of it gave him a shiver that it took him a while to interpret as pleasant. Friend. Well, he _was_ drawn to the guy, wasn't he? "Yes," he said carefully. Naruto would never know what it cost him to put himself out there like that after all the rejections he'd endured in his life.

But there Gaara was wrong. Naruto would have understood perfectly. "Yeah?" the blonde grinned. "You mean it?" Gaara was utterly powerless against that smile, a smile that lit Naruto from within. How could such light exist in him when he lives in such darkness, Gaara wondered. He nodded once in answer to Naruto's question.

Naruto did a small leap, absurdly happy at this acceptance. Then he calmed. "Why? Why do you want to be my friend?"

"Why wouldn't I want to be?" Gaara countered smoothly.

"Either," Naruto said just as smoothly.

"What?"

"You said 'either'. That I don't have any friends _either_. Does that mean you also don't have friends?"

Gaara turned, unfolded his arms, and bent to retrieve a kunai that was stuck in the stream bank. He ignored the question. "I can help you train, if you like."

Naruto was unwilling to let the matter drop so easily. He felt righteous entitlement to the details of Gaara's life now that he had a friend at last. "Why do people hate you?" he asked.

"I could ask you the same question," Gaara replied as he tested the blade against a fingertip. "I see the way people look at you."

A minor staring match ensued. This time Gaara looked away first. Naruto walked to him and took the kunai. "I'd be really grateful for whatever training help you give me," he told the redhead.

The tension that had been building between them ghosted away as they each became absorbed in what, for Naruto, was the best pastime on earth.  
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

If the boisterous blond had any doubts about a fellow Genin teaching him, they were quickly and rudely dispelled. Naruto was handed his ass again and again, unable to get past that armor of sand. Gaara merely stood with his arms folded, one hip slightly cocked as his green eyes moved in analytical observation. Finally, he told Naruto to stop.

"Your chakra control is a mess," the redhead said. "What-"

Whatever Gaara had been about to say was drowned out by a hoarse bellow of outrage.

" _There_ you are," hollered Baki. "I swear, you want your father The Fourth to feed my eyes to the ravens, don't you?" He latched onto Gaara's arm and began dragging him forcefully away, completely ignoring Naruto. "If I have to bind you with chakra I will do it!" Baki continued to rant. "You know how important you are to this mission and here you are wasting your-"

Naruto didn't at first understand what he was seeing. He heard Gaara roar, saw his sand merge with his arm to form some…thing…that smacked Baki all the way across the stream. Naruto didn't look to see where the Jounin landed. His eyes were glued to what was happening to Gaara.

The kid was on his knees, holding his head and screaming. His eyes looked haunted. That sand appendage seemed to grow and then Gaara looked up to see Naruto looking at him with nothing more than alarmed curiosity. Curiosity for him, his friend. There was no hate or repugnance, just that open look. Gaara couldn't take this, not after he'd shown what he truly was. _No one_ accepted him once they knew. No one!

Naruto saw the tail grow from sand and lash out at him. He dodged, but the tip caught him anyway. Ground switched places with sky as he turned uncontrollably in the air. From the corner of his eye, Naruto saw Baki running across the water. By the time he'd landed in a bush, extracted himself, and run back to where Gaara had been, they were both gone. Naruto stood looking around in bewilderment.

"What…the _hell_?" But there was no one there to answer his sudden multitude of questions.  
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Back at the hotel, Gaara didn't need the screaming lecture Baki crammed in between laments that his secret was out. 

He'd blown it. The first, the very _first_ , person ever to treat him as ordinary and accept him, and Gaara had attacked him. Worse, he'd shown him the truth of his existence. Naruto had gotten an eyeful of the monster inside Gaara. Not all of it, not the whole thing by any means, but more than enough to be going on with, thank you very much. He should have known better. Friendship, acceptance, these were terms used by people who lived lives full of light and happiness. Gaara's life was one of darkness and pain.

Ruined. His budding friendship was ruined.

Gaara willingly locked himself in his room and further encased himself in his sand sphere for additional solitude. No one could see his tears then, or hear the measure of his aching regret in the sobs he tried to muffle with his hands.  
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Naruto went home in a daze. It was still shy of noon. He closed his door, looked at his squalid living space and absently began cleaning it up. While he worked, his mind rang with thoughts. These thoughts fed themselves, grew, took shape. Naruto finished with the main room and moved to the kitchen nook, distractedly killing roaches with the flat of his palm and wiping the crushed carcasses off on his pants legs. He swept, washed, scrubbed, and all the while the thoughts continued to take shape until, by the time Naruto stood in a spotless apartment, the shape was complete.

It was a shining, fantastical construct that perhaps he should have been afraid to look upon. Instead, seeing it, Naruto rejoiced:

Gaara was like him. _Just_ like him.

And that meant he was more than a friend. What, Naruto didn't know, but he intended to find out. And to do that he needed to find Gaara and speak to him right away.

An eager, toothy smile slashed Naruto's face as he left his building.  
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The first sign of trouble came in a distant scream from the reception area downstairs. Temari only had time to glance up from polishing her fan before an ominous rumbling sound was heard. Kankurou felt the floor beneath his feet tremble slightly. Baki was in the room with them. His one eye showed puzzlement as a sound, like hundreds upon hundreds of running feet, reached his ears. As one, the three turned with dawning suspicion to their motel door.

That simple piece of wood exploded into a thousand splinters (causing the occupants of the living room to scatter swiftly) as an army of Narutos came stampeding through. They filled the hall beyond the motel room to the ceiling, swarming over each other like a deadly school of piranha. Indeed, they displayed a mass of carnivorous grins as they flooded the motel room from wall to wall. Temari shrieked. Baki cursed. Kankurou saw the head of one of his puppets crushed beneath a blue-sandaled foot and was thankful it wasn't his own head.

Unseen, the real Naruto made his way toward Gaara's room via the window. He slipped inside and found a huge, rock hard ball of sand. He presumed Gaara was inside.  
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Of all things, Gaara heard knocking on his sphere. Actual knocking. He could sense the chakra signature and grimaced. "Go away."

"No. Gaara, I want to talk to you. I…I think I understand. About you." Naruto's voice sounded inappropriately cheerful.

Gaara's stomach cramped; he wanted so desperately to believe that…"You don't know anything, understand nothing. Leave me alone."

Naruto could hear Baki and the other two starting to fight back now. His clones wouldn't last long. "Oh. So you don't have a monster living inside you? My mistake then, I must have been seeing things. It's cool, you know, I get it. You're shy and all, don't want people looking at you funny. And you're right, what would I know? I mean, I only have a monster living inside me too, but of course I wouldn't know anyth-"

A hole appeared in the ball of sand in front of Naruto's face. A pair of wide green eyes peered out at him. "What did you say?" Gaara's voice shook. Naruto couldn't have said that just now…he hadn't heard right…

"If you really want to know, I suggest we get out of here." Naruto cocked his ear to the din outside Gaara's room. "Yup, sounds like they're doing away with the last of my clones so I'd say we have about ten seconds to split."

Gaara reached out a pale arm and yanked Naruto through the hole that widened briefly to admit him. Baki crashed through Gaara's door in time to see Naruto's feet disappearing into the sphere. He yelled, but by then the sphere had levitated, hovered for a second as if deciding what to do and then crashed through the wall. Baki ran to the ragged opening and saw the sphere zooming away through the sky, heading for the outskirts of the village.

"Damn!" Baki swore. He slammed his hand against the wall by the hole.  
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Naruto felt oddly as if he were in an elevator. One that was going sickeningly fast and high. He couldn't see a thing in the dark interior of the sphere, but his ears began popping with the change in air pressure. He moaned softly and felt a warm, dry hand grope for his. Naruto grasped it as it dawned on him that he must be up in the sky. His stomach rolled with the realization and he moaned a little harder. Gaara dragged him by his hand until they were sitting pressed side by side. He put an arm around Naruto.

Gaara could feel Naruto trembling violently. He slowed his sphere and lowered it until he knew they were just grazing the forest treetops outside Konoha. Naruto seemed to calm down. His tremors subsided, then stopped altogether. He lifted his head from where it had lain against Gaara's shoulder.

"I can't see a thing," Naruto complained. "It's pitch black in here."

Gaara sensed Naruto waving a hand frantically in front of his own face. He concentrated and opened a small skylight in the top portion of the sphere, directly over their heads. Late afternoon light streamed in. It cast a yellow beam down through the inside of the sphere. Naruto could feel the sphere spinning slowly on this ethereal axis as his eyes adjusted. Gaara regarded him from the other side of the sunbeam.

Naruto had been unconsciously hyperventilating. When his breathing returned to normal, Gaara decided he could wait no longer. "You said-"

Naruto cut him off. "You first. You tell me your story first and I'll tell you mine."

Gaara noted the continued lack of revulsion on Naruto's part and was silent a few moments. At last, when the blue eyes only looked at him unflinchingly, Gaara gathered his courage and took a deep breath.

He told everything. He left nothing out.

He told of his birth, his mother, his uncle, the children in the village. He told of wanting to know what love was. Of the assassination attempts.

He told of Shukaku in hushed, frightening, frightened tones.

Gaara touched the tattoo on his forehead. "I try to love myself, but I can't. I'm a monster. Even if I wasn't, I don't know how. I…still don't even really know what love is, how it feels." He did not raise his eyes to Naruto's. He couldn't. He couldn't risk seeing a change in the expression at last. Surely the change would be there now.

Naruto sat in the slowly revolving sphere. A feeling of such sweeping gladness overcame him that he was ashamed; the things Gaara had revealed shouldn't make him happy, but they did. _He really is just like me. More than I thought_.

"For a long time, I didn't know why everyone hated me," Naruto began. The rest came out easier than he thought it would. Gaara raised his head and listened intently. He was quiet until Naruto told what was inside of him.

"But," Gaara said in a low, tense voice. "But that would mean that you're like me…a Jinchuuriki like me."

"Is that what they call it?" Naruto shrugged.

Gaara was dumbfounded. How had he lived his life not knowing this boy who could _be_ him, their lives were so alike?

Naruto tilted his head to the side, studying Gaara through that one hazy beam of light. "When I look at you," the blond said thoughtfully, "it's like I'm looking into a mirror. We're the same, Gaara. Do you feel it?"

Gaara nodded mutely. He felt a lot more than that as something in him broke open, flooded with Naruto's light, and began to take root. Abruptly, he remembered a conversation Yashamaru had had with him. About love healing the pain in his heart. Gaara had lived with that pain for as long as he could remember…but now it was lessening. He felt it gradually burning away under the fathomless blue of Naruto's eyes and that rooted thing that was growing in his chest.

Naruto leaned forward on his hands. His hair was suddenly blinding as it passed through the sunbeam. Then Naruto's face was right in front of Gaara's as he crouched on all fours. His expression was shadowed as he said clearly, "We're more than friends, Gaara. We're brothers."

Heart thudding with ever-increasing speed and agitation, that thing growing until he was filled with a new pain, a sweet pain, Gaara studied the eyes so close to his own. His own eyes dropped lower. 'No. I have a brother. You're nothing like him. I don't know what we are, Naruto, but it's not brothers."

Gaara's hand slid up the side of Naruto's face as he brought his head to the blonde's.


	3. Chapter 3

It wasn't the lips that had a cool shudder glancing along Naruto's skin. It was the hand. The hand Gaara had on Naruto's face. That caress was somehow more intimate than the lips.

But the lips definitely caught his attention, too. More than the lips themselves, it was what the lips were making Naruto feel. He knew nothing of erogenous zones or how touching certain areas invariably brought on pleasant sensations. He just knew that what Gaara was doing made him feel really good, like _really_ good, and Naruto hadn't felt really good or kind of good or a little bit good in a long time. Maybe not ever, not like this. He leaned his weight forward, rocking on his hands and knees, pushing his mouth against Gaara's.

Gaara didn't know what he was doing either. He had a vague memory of Yashamaru kissing away some hurt during that remembered conversation and Naruto's face was right there, those weird feelings were twisting in his chest and the urge had come on him to do this intimate thing. A faint sense that this was maybe wrong niggled the back of his mind, but then Naruto was pushing against him, _wanting_ him and everything went out of his head. Gaara's desperate soul failed utterly beneath the twisting rooting feelings inside him and he threw himself against Naruto, arms clasping around the other boy's slight frame spasmodically.

Just that.

They only hugged hard, pressing their lips against each other's in this strange new experience. Gaara slid down the concave side of his sphere beneath Naruto's greater physical strength, but it was he that rolled them so the blonde was beneath him. Gaara gasped at how delicious it felt to have Naruto's body pressed to his in all the places he'd never been touched before. Naruto's hands roamed everywhere; Gaara's back, his hair, his neck and shoulders…one tanned hand squeezed Gaara's tight left buttock cheerfully and Gaara gasped again. Naruto let out a nervous little giggle. He gave the redhead another grabbing pinch.

Gaara lifted his head and shoved a hand under Naruto to do the same to him. Naruto twisted and squirmed and somehow the blonde's knee came up between Gaara's legs and the impact was a dull punch of something that had Gaara suddenly sweating. He froze. That had felt more than good, that had been…

He shifted experimentally as Naruto, also frozen, watched. The way Gaara was positioned, his own leg landed between Naruto's thighs and that had _him_ gasping, and then their bodies caught on and they were doing a weird kind of gyrating motion against each other. Their eyes were wide and a little scared as they stared into each other's faces.

There was no question of stopping, even if they didn't know what was happening. It was like hanging on to a log as a raging river rushed you headlong towards open sky; you wanted to let go of the log, or in this case stop what you were doing, but you just couldn't. The river would carry you over regardless, and whatever they were doing was taking over their minds and pushing them towards something no matter the insubstantial thoughts they each had about stopping.

Naruto went over first. A strengthless little scream escaped him as his insides erupted hotly into his pants. He clutched at Gaara for support, tremors clamoring through him as Gaara seemed to suffer the same fate. Gaara uttered a series of hitching, shuddering breaths amidst a high whine and then the sphere wasn't a sphere, but so much falling sand. Naruto and Gaara, in the throes of their first orgasms, fell with it.

-oOo-

Gone though his mind was, Gaara had to assume his sphere had risen while he and Naruto had been touching; they weren't falling from the relatively safe distance of forest treetops. They were tumbling through a good two or three thousand feet of hot summer air. Bad as this was, Gaara's mind was still locked on the wetness spurting out of him even as he fell. It was Naruto's hysterical scream (one much livelier than the scream he'd given when he'd ejaculated) that had Gaara flinging out a desperate hand. His sand gathered gracefully under the blonde to halt his fall. He landed on the cloud of sand beside Naruto a moment later.

They drifted towards earth as the adrenaline of coming and plummeting to their deaths slowly evaporated. The sand set them down gently among the forest trees on a grassy patch of ground. The green canopy above them let in small rays of light. They were silent as their brains stuttered back to some semblance of working order. It was a lengthy process, but at last Naruto said,

"What…what?"

"Huh?" Gaara's mind was having trouble starting.

"Huh?"

"What?"

"What what?"

"Huh?"

"Uh….that." It was as much as Naruto could manage for the moment. Then, "Thing. We…uh, did. Wh-" a blush stole up Naruto's neck. "What were you doing?"

"Oh. That." Gaara struggled to remember words, how they formed and what they meant. "I…don't know?"

"Me either."

"You…seemed to like it."

"Yeah. You didn't…stop. Either."

"Was it wrong…do you think?"

"I don't…I don't know. Did it feel wrong?"

"A little. Then no. "

"Yeah. No. I mean it didn't. Feel wrong." Naruto groped for some kind of elaborative amendment, found one: "It felt good."

"Yeah."

"You maybe…want to do it again?"

Gaara summoned a tiny shred of strength and used it to laboriously turn his head to regard Naruto. He felt nearly comatose with fatigue. "I do if you want to."

Naruto lifted a hand that felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. He found Gaara's and laced his fingers with the paler ones. "Yeah. Okay. Tired now."

"Me too."

They slept there on the sand, spread-eagled and completely defenseless. A white-haired man found them like that an hour later. Recognizing the blond hair from his past, the man stood looking at them thoughtfully as he rubbed his chin. Eventually he decided to sit for a spell and continue his journey a bit later.  
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Their bodies recovered speedily as they slept off their activities. They improved to the point that they both woke with a start, the presence sitting a few yards away setting off their inner alarms with a jangle. Naruto gasped and sat bolt upright. Gaara, used to his sand protecting him, sat up more slowly. Then he got a good look at how strong the guy's chakra felt and decided maybe Naruto was right to look as he did.

Night had come. Insects could be heard droning with a _skrii-skrii_ sound. The man sat cross-legged, fanning himself idly as he sipped from a _sake_ bottle and watched them in amusement.

Gaara rarely spoke to anyone unless forced to. He was content to let the silence stretch out to infinity, but Naruto said brazenly, "Who are you?"

"I?" the man said as he snapped his fan closed. He pointed at them with it. "You should be offering me your names! I watched over you while you left yourselves unguarded. You should bow down to me!"

Gaara got up, bored by the man already. Naruto hurried to follow. Gaara's sand funneled itself back into his gourd as he stood. He turned his back and began walking toward the village. Naruto cast the white-haired man a worried glance before he ran to catch up with Gaara.

-oOo-

Once in the village, Naruto asked what kind of trouble Gaara'd be in with his sensei. Gaara gave a languid shrug. "They fear me. I'll be fine." Then he turned to look at Naruto as they walked beneath a street lamp. "Are you worried? About me?" It was a strange concept. And wonderful.

"Well, yeah. I mean…I don't want you to get in trouble for what we did. And I'm not sure I can break into your motel again."

Gaara felt painful joy at seeing the crestfallen expression on Naruto's face. The blonde wanted to see him again. "I will get away, don't worry."

"Okay…so, I'll see you by the stream again tomorrow?"

"Yes. We'll train."

Naruto nodded. Neither of them had the guts to say what else they wanted to do.  
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The next day Naruto arrived at the appointed place and found Gaara waiting, arms folded. He bounded right up to the redhead, grinning hard and exuding happiness. "You're here! Were you waiting long?"

Gaara might have acknowledged a few things about his feelings for the blonde yesterday, may have engaged in questionable behavior, but he was far from used to this open camaraderie and exuberance. Naruto threw his arms around him and all Gaara could do was stand there with his folded arms pressed to Naruto's chest. Naruto didn't seem to mind. He was turning away, opening his bag and talking about eating lunch before they got started.

Naruto paused in his bubbly ramblings as Gaara's hand closed over his wrist. He dropped the _onigiri_ he was holding as Gaara inexorably pulled him and tried to duplicate the hug he'd received. Naruto relaxed once he realized what was happening. He hugged Gaara back eagerly.

"This is nice," Naruto said after awhile. It was, too. Not like yesterday, just nice. Comfortable. It made him feel like he wasn't alone, and the relief of that was too breathtaking for him to let go. It was better than the first hug of a few moments ago.

"Yes," Gaara said. His eyes glanced around over Naruto's shoulder. There was no one else around. He leaned back, locked his gaze on Naruto's mouth, and then did what he did yesterday.

Naruto stood complacently. It was the same, he thought incoherently. This morning he'd woken up and wondered if what he'd done with Gaara hadn't been some fevered dream. He'd been kissing a boy, I mean come on! But it was happening again, and the feeling was the same, except no it wasn't.

This time the crazy good feelings came much more swiftly, making their knees buckle. Naruto put out a hand to steady himself, stumbled, was caught by Gaara, and then they both ended up on the grass, half in the water.

Ugh, Naruto thought. His mouth is open and-

!

!

!

Gaara felt Naruto recoil at the touch of his tongue. Truth be told, he recoiled himself. He didn't know how that had happened. He tried to apologize, but just then something caught his attention that he hadn't really noticed yesterday.

His prick was hard.

Water was seeping up his pants leg and the feel of it against his heated skin, against that hardness, had Gaara biting Naruto involuntarily. He felt perilously close to that feeling that had come upon him in the end yesterday.

Naruto bit back, then he and Gaara were both biting, then they weren't, then their mouths were eating each other painlessly. Naruto didn't know what he'd been disgusted about. It was glorious, amplifying those feelings until-

"What's this? I find you sleeping like babes one day and screwing the next?" The white-haired man reached down and dragged the two boys apart by the scruff of their necks.

Naruto spluttered as the big man tossed them head first into the stream. Gaara reacted differently. He managed to dissolve his gourd and send it and the sand it contained into the sky before he landed in the water. He stood –stood!- on the ripples their landing had caused and raised a hand toward the white-haired man.

"Sabaku SouSou!"

Naruto watched from the water as the sand enveloped the man completely. Gaara closed his hand into a tight fist and the sand compressed with an audible crunch of bones.

Naruto yelled. "What! You killed him! Oh, my God, you killed-"

"Hardly," the white-haired man said from up in a tree. 

Naruto looked from him to where Gaara's sand was revealing a pulverized log. He dragged his soaked body from the stream and went to examine the log up close. He turned frightened, awe-struck eyes to Gaara. "Dude, you have to teach me that jutsu," he said in a shaking voice. "I can't wait till you start training me!" His blue eyes glowed at the prospect of using such a technique against Sasuke. The thought curled his lips into a wolfish grin of anticipation.

But Gaara wasn't listening. He was staring at the man who lounged casually in a tree. The man, in turn, was staring at Naruto. He dropped from the tree to land lightly in front of him. Naruto was forced to look up at the brawny guy.

"Train? By this boy? Where is your Jounin teacher," the man said with a concerned frown.

"Off teaching Sasuke."

Naruto heard the man mutter about the treatment of a godson or something. He looked at the white hair and supposed it was close enough in color that Kakashi could be the man's godson. It was a creepy thought.

"And what do you need training so urgently for that you're willing to seek it from this person?" He gestured vaguely at where Gaara was walking slowly toward the stream bank.

Naruto explained about the Chuunin exams and his upcoming match against Neji. The man listened. He frowned again at hearing how Ebisu had turned him down. Naruto lost interest when the man did nothing but stare at him thoughtfully. He turned his attention to the wood splinters in his hand and held them up to Gaara. "This is what you did to Fuzzy Brows, right? Could I do it without the whole sand thing because, like, I don't have a great big gourd of sand and-"

"Oi, Naruto."

Naruto stopped speaking to turn his head slowly and regard the man. "How do you know my name?"

The man ignored that. "I know a much better move than this jutsu." He kicked some of the destroyed log with a _geta_. "If you like, I can teach it to you. I can train you for this match against the Hyuuga."

Gaara felt the old red rage wrap him in a heated cloud of anger as Naruto's eyes lit up. His friend was being lured away from him! He turned and began walking slowly back toward his motel, and the fit he was sure Baki was having at his absence.  
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Gaara didn't see Naruto for three days. He remained in his hotel room. On the third night, he sat on the roof contemplating murder of the white-haired interloper. A thud behind him showed Naruto standing there. He looked extremely tired, but happy. Gaara faced front again, idly bending a piece of grass back and forth in his fingers. His elbows rested on his drawn up knees.

"Aren't you going to say hi to me?" Naruto asked as he dropped down beside Gaara.

"You obviously have a new friend."

Naruto studied the blank features and realized this lack of emotion was the same as the sand armor; it protected Gaara. He threw it up to prevent himself from getting hurt. Then, on the heels of that thought, _I hurt him. He thinks I like someone else better than him._

"First of all, he's not a new friend," Naruto said testily. "You and I are more than friends, remember? He could never be what you are to me. Second of all, he's training me and you can't imagine how hard the crap is. He's killing me."

Gaara slid his gaze up and down Naruto's body and noted the circles of exhaustion under the blue eyes.

"I missed you, Gaara. Don't be mad at me, please? Ero-sennin would have my ass if he knew I wasn't working on that blasted summoning jutsu, but I had to see you. I thought maybe something happened to you when I didn't see you for so long. Please?"

Naruto wormed his hand into Gaara's, sending the blade of grass swaying down to the ground. After a minute Gaara let his hand be held, squeezed Naruto's fingers in turn. Naruto scooted closer to him and Gaara's body relaxed. He laid his blonde head on Gaara's shoulder. "Can we go up in the sphere again?" he whispered after awhile.

"…You mean…?"

Naruto scrunched his nose in embarrassment. "Yeah."

"I might lose control of it again. When we…you know."

"I trust you."

Gaara stared down into the blue eyes. Out of nowhere a thought struck him, blinding everything inside him with its brilliance: _I love him_.

The sphere was a dark shape against the full moon. Said moon drove Shukaku to make Gaara do some very interesting things inside that sphere. People on the ground glanced up at the odd muffled howling sounds coming from the floating shape in the sky and hurried to secure themselves behind closed doors.  
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Gaara and Naruto managed to meet a few times each week during the month before the final exam. Naruto told Gaara his teacher's name was Jiraiya, but that he couldn't stop calling him Ero-sennin because of his perverted ways. Gaara thought of what he and Naruto snuck off to do so often and wondered if they were perverted. When Naruto managed to summon Gamabunta, Gaara celebrated with him. The two previously lonely boys grew closer to each other with each passing day. Neither of them liked to think what would happen when the Chuunin exams were over and they had to separate.

Then Gaara received even worse news. The night before the final matches Baki addressed him and his brother and sister.

"I've mentioned the mission before, but until now I've kept the details from you," their sensei said gravely. He continued to elaborate on the mission, the plan, as Gaara, Temari and Kankurou listened in stunned disbelief.  
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Naruto wasn't asleep when the frantic pounding began on his door. He was awake, dread twisting his guts at facing Neji tomorrow. He hadn't seen Gaara in two days, forcing himself to spend the remainder of his time training like hell. The hammering on his door was a welcome distraction from his thoughts.

He barely cracked the door open before Gaara forced his way through in an uncharacteristic show of speed and nerves. He spun and faced Naruto in agitation. Naruto had never seen Gaara display anything but numbing calm, or steely control. He was shocked to see the redhead in such a state. "What's wrong with you?" Naruto asked. Then he had a thought. "You nervous about fighting Sasuke? Don't be. Just promise me you'll use that Sabaku SouSou on his ugly-"

"Naruto, do you trust me?" Gaara interrupted edgily.

"You know I do. Why?"

"Come with me. Tonight."

Naruto realized he was still holding his door open and closed it as he frowned. "O…kaaaay…where?"

"Away…just away."

Naruto waited for more, making a rolling motion with his hand.

Gaara searched for words, and decided nothing but the truth would do. "Something bad's going to happen. Here, in your village. Tomorrow." That was it, Gaara couldn't bring himself to speak of his role in it. And anyway he wasn't going to do what they said. He was going to take Naruto and leave.

Naruto frowned hard. "What do you mean? What's going to happen?"

"I…it…some people are going to attack. Please Naruto, just come with me!" Gaara held out his hand. Naruto looked at it.

"But this is my home. I can't just abandon the village when it's going to be attacked. I have to help, I want to help! And," Naruto squinted his eyes in sudden suspicion. "How do you know there's going to be an attack?"

Gaara could not bear that look, not from him. He dropped his head as he brought himself under control. He turned, giving Naruto his back as his familiar tight self-containment asserted itself once more. He still shook with nerves, but it was under the surface now. _Trust goes both ways_ , he thought. "I know because my sensei told me. He said Suna is in an alliance with Oto to attack Konoha and bring it to its knees. I swear to you Naruto, I _swear_ , I knew nothing about it until tonight. Please leave with me."

Naruto leaned against his door, his palms flat and spread against the wood, mouth open. Gaara turned back to him and saw the look of horrified shock. He waited.

"Why would your village do that? Forget that, we have to tell someone," Naruto said nervously. He started to pull his door open. Gaara was there, slamming it shut again with one palm.

"No, Naruto."

"Bastard! Why not? If we warn everyone then Konoha will be prepared and-"

"No."

Naruto tried to calm his panicking mind and think. It was hard to do. Adrenaline was coursing through him and everything in him was telling him to act, to act now. He looked at Gaara questioningly. "How come, if you don't agree with what your sensei said, you're not going to stay and fight with Konoha?"

Gaara was silent for many moments. His luminous eyes weighed his friendship with Naruto, and judged the blonde able to hear the truth. "Because they want to use me, use Shukaku, as the main weapon. And if I stay here, if I see all the blood and killing, I'll lose control of myself and end up killing everyone and destroying everything anyway. I have to leave, Naruto, and get away before it all starts. And I want you to come with me."

"Why, though? How come you're not going along with the plan?"

Gaara had asked himself that question, too. He'd thought long and hard as he made his way to Naruto's building. "Because of you, Naruto. I don't want to hurt you and if I attacked your village you would never forgive me. I can't lose you or your friendship."

Naruto tried to smile, but the situation really was too dire for that. He paced up and down, thinking. "How long would we have to be gone for? Would it be forever?"

"No," Gaara replied, not daring to hope that Naruto was agreeing with him. "Just until the invasion is over, one way or another."

"And you're sure we can't stay and fight?"

"We could…well, you could. But if I stayed, things would get out of hand."

Naruto studied Gaara as he pulled on his lip. "When is the invasion supposed to take place?"

"Sometime during the matches."

"So…not as soon as they begin?"

"I don't think so."

"Okay then just let me beat Neji first. Then I'll come with you."

"What? Naruto, that-"

"Please, man! You have no idea how hard I trained and I promised that shark I'd beat his ass. Just let me have a chance to beat him and then we can leave, okay? Look, I'll even pack my stuff now."

Gaara wavered, but relented after continued pleading from Naruto. "All right. But this is cutting it pretty close."  
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

In the end, Gaara was glad he'd agreed. Naruto had his balls to the wall, but then he used his Kyuubi chakra and really did win spectacularly. He felt Shukaku stirring in him, responding to the Kyuubi chakra and the bloodlust evident in Neji and Naruto both. By the time Naruto landed next to him and they were making their getaway, Gaara was panting harshly.

Naruto eyed him and linked his arm through Gaara's. "It's okay, I got you. We're leaving."

Evading Baki and gate security was nearly impossible, but there Gaara had them covered. They traveled swiftly past Sand and Sound Jounin in the forests outside Konoha, traveled all day and all night until they were good and lost in the Land of Fire. Gaara was calm again. He and Naruto finally stopped near a low mountain that had a cave.

-oOo-

They had no way of knowing how long the invasion would go on or who would be victorious so they just stayed away. They hunted, played, trained, and did more of what they'd done in the sphere. Their groping and kissing never went much beyond that and Gaara never put his mouth between Naruto's legs again as he'd done that night of the full moon. They'd both been more than a little frightened at how adult that had felt.

Naruto turned to Gaara happily one afternoon where they sat in the wildflowers and said. "I love you."

Gaara smiled. Really smiled. His teeth were showing and everything. Naruto was busy staring at this sight and almost missed Gaara's own declaration. "I love you, too."  
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

#  _Epilogue_

_It was Jiraiya who found them some weeks later. He woke them both up from a sound sleep in each other's arms with a solid punch to their heads. "Stupid!" he barked. "Running off during the invasion, making everyone think you both had died! I nearly had a stroke from the worry!" He gave them each another punch for good measure._

_He carted them back to Konoha, keeping up a running commentary about their lack of consideration. Naruto finally told why they'd run away, how they hadn't wanted to risk Gaara bringing out the tailed beast inside him. Then Jiraiya was silent._

_At the village, Baki took Gaara and explained how they'd all been made fools of. Orochimaru betrayed Suna and The Fourth Kazekage was dead. Gaara received the information with little emotion._

_Jiraiya spent his time going head to head with the village council. They denied him, fought him, threatened him, and all to no avail. Jiraiya provided irrefutable proof. "He's my godson," he told them angrily. "I will not let him be treated this way anymore, I don't care if you think he's Konoha's weapon."_

_"Very well," they capitulated. "On one condition: Bring us Tsunade as the new Hokage. Then you may have him."_  
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_Naruto sat in his apartment, Jiraiya explaining how he'd known his father, how he was his godfather, how Naruto was going to be under his care from now on. "I'm leaving the village?" Naruto asked in wonder._

_"Yes. To train with me."_

_"For how long?"_

_"Until you're an adult."_

_"Oh. Gaara's leaving too," Naruto said sadly. He looked down at his dirty hands. "He's going back to his village. I guess…I guess we won't see each other anymore."_

_Jiraiya came over and ruffled Naruto's hair. "We'll swing by Suna from time to time."_

_Gaara came to see him that night. They stared at each other in the doorway for a long time. Then they were both crying, the shock of seeing Gaara display such emotion eclipsed by how much parting from him hurt. "I'll visit you," Naruto sobbed brokenly against Gaara's shoulder. "I promise, I'll visit."_

_"I'll be waiting," Gaara said just as fiercely. "Don't forget me, Naruto."_

_"Never! Oh God!"_

_Then Gaara was gone._  
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_Jiraiya said they'd be leaving in a week. The night before they left, Naruto was in his apartment alone, making sure he had everything packed. A knock sounded at his door. He went to open it._

_It was Sasuke. He had a bag on his back. Naruto only looked at him, wondering what on earth he wanted._

_"I'm leaving," Sasuke finally said._

_"Okay," Naruto shrugged._

_Sasuke blinked. "I'm going to Orochimaru."_

_Naruto remembered the snake freak who'd attacked Sasuke during the Chuunin exams. He'd heard the same freak was responsible for the invasion. He eyed Sasuke with hooded eyes. "Always knew you were a traitor."_

_Sasuke said nothing. He was going to do this thing regardless. He'd just hoped, secretly, that Naruto would try to stop him. He'd noticed Naruto wasn't hounding him, harassing him the way he always used to, as soon as he'd gotten back from training with Kakashi. The blond had a new obsession in that red-haired kid. Sasuke had been shocked at how hurt and jealous he'd been. He'd come here hoping for…something. But Naruto didn't seem to care that he was leaving the village. He started to turn away from Naruto's door, away from the cold look in those blue eyes. Then he stopped._

_"I never hated you," Sasuke whispered_. I just wanted you to chase me harder. I wanted you to save me, _he thought. Then he left. He heard Naruto slam his door and winced._  
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_Naruto left with Jiraiya the next day. He learned much on his travels with the guy, including who his parents were. And he kept his promise to visit Gaara. He managed it two or three times a year. It had been during one such visit that Akatsuki tried to take Gaara. Naruto had gone insane, gone Kyuubi, and he and Gaara annihilated both Deidara and Sasori._

_After that, Jiraiya was approached by the council of Sunagakure, beseeched to take their Kazekage along with him and Naruto on their travels in order to keep him safe. Jiraiya agreed._

_Naruto and Gaara remained together, learning and loving, ever since._


End file.
